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A couple of weekends ago, we drove up to the lake house with a trunk full of flag bunting and exactly one job: make it look like the Fourth. A lake in summer is already about the most American place you can land — screen doors, wet towels over the railing, somebody’s flip-flops left on the dock — so it doesn’t take much to lean the rest of the way in.
These flag buntings come in three sizes, so there’s one to fit just about any railing, window, or porch opening. We used eight of the 3′ x 6′ size across the front of the house and hung them with finish nails bent to a 90° angle once they were in — that little bend is the whole secret to keeping them from sliding off in the wind. Someone in the DMs put me onto these hooks and swears they never come undone, so those are on the list for next time. (I wore my red swimsuit for the install, naturally.)
How to Decorate for a Classic, Traditional Fourth of July
The trick with Americana decor is to stop before it tips into the party-store aisle. A few rules I keep coming back to:
- Classic over costume. Real fabric bunting, an actual cotton flag, a red-and-white ticking stripe — skip anything inflatable unless it’s a pool float.
- Let red do the heavy lifting. This is where my preppy side comes out: a red-and-white stripe, an oversized flag sweater, the red swimsuit. One strong red reads more Fourth of July than head-to-toe red-white-and-blue ever does.
- Decorate where people already gather. The railing, the porch, the table you’ll actually eat at (and leave the rest alone).
- Buy the pieces you’d keep out past July. Bunting, stripe linens, a flag that’s softened with use, they only get better with a summer behind them.
Inside, I keep it to a few small spots rather than dressing every room. If you want to see the pieces I grabbed, they’re in our curated Fourth of July shop. And if you’re feeding a crowd, the Fourth of July menu has a ton of ideas for your festivities.
Happy 250th, America. We’ll be on the dock.
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